page_title: Kanheri Caves
section_title: Great Chaitya (Cave No.3)
hierarchical_section_title: Kanheri Caves / Description of the caves / Great Chaitya (Cave No.3)
caption_attribution_description: The entrance to the main cave
context_page_description: The Kanheri Caves are a group of caves and rock-cut monuments cut into a massive basalt outcrop in the forests of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, on the former island of Salsette in the western outskirts of Mumbai, India. They contain Buddhist sculptures and relief carvings, paintings and inscriptions, dating from the 1st century CE to the 10th century CE. Kanheri comes from the Sanskrit Krishnagiri, which means black mountain.
  The site is on a hillside, and is accessible via rock-cut steps. The cave complex comprises one hundred and nine caves. The oldest are relatively plain and unadorned, in contrast to later caves on the site, and the highly embellished Elephanta Caves of Mumbai. Each cave has a stone plinth that functioned as a bed. A congregation hall with huge stone pillars contains a stupa. Rock-cut channels above the caves fed rainwater into cisterns, which provided the complex with water. Once the caves were converted to permanent monasteries, their walls were carved with intricate reliefs of Buddha and the Bodhisattvas. Kanheri had become an important Buddhist settlement on the Konkan coast by the 3rd century CE.
context_section_description: The cave first met on the way up the hill, and the most important one in the whole series, is the great Chaitya cave. On the jamb of the entrance to the veranda is an inscription of Yajna Sri Satakarni (circa 170 CE), the same whose name appears in cave No. 81; the inscription here being much mutilated, it is only by help of the other that it can be deciphered. It seems, however, to be integral, and it is consequently not improbable that the cave was excavated during his reign.
  From the style of the architecture it can be stated with certainty that the Cave 17 at Nasik Caves is contemporary, or nearly so, with the Great Chaitya at Karla, and that the Nahapana Cave there (No.10) is more modern than No.17, but at no great interval of time. The Gautamiputra Cave No.3 succeeded to these after a considerable lapse of time, while anything that Yajna Sri Satakarni may have done there must, of course, have been executed within a short interval of time after that. On the other hand, whatever its date may be, it is certain that the plan of this Chaitya Cave is a literal copy of that at Karle, but the architectural details show exactly the same difference in style as is found between Cave 17 and Cave 3 at Nasik. 
  If, for instance, we compare the capitals in this cave, with those of Karle, we find the same degradation of style as is seen between Nasik cave No.10 and the later Nasik cave No.3. The screen too, in front of this cave, though very much weatherworn and consequently difficult to draw, is of very nearly the same design that is in the Gautamiputra Cave at Nasik, and in its complication of discs and animal forms seems almost as modern as what can be found at Amravati.
  This temple is 86.5 feet long by 39 feet 10 inches wide from wall to wall, and has thirty-four pillars round the nave and the dagoba, only 6 on one side and eleven on the other having bases and capitals of the Karle Chaitya-cave patterns, but not so well proportioned nor so spiritedly cut, while fifteen pillars round the apse are plain octagonal shafts. The dagoba is a very plain one, nearly 16 feet in diameter, but its capital is destroyed; so also is all the woodwork of the arched roof. The aisle across the front is covered by a gallery under the great arched window, and probably the central portion of the veranda in front was also covered, but in wood. At the ends of this veranda are two colossal figures of Buddha, about 
  23 feet high, but these appear to be considerably later than the cave itself. 
  The sculpture on the front screen wall is apparently a copy of that in the same position at Karle, but rather better executed, indeed, they are the best carved figures in these caves; the rock in this place happens to be peculiarly close grained, and the style of dress of the figures is that of the age of the great Satakarnis. The earrings are heavy and some of them oblong, while the anklets of the women are very heavy, and the turbans wrought with great care. This style of dress never occurs in any of the later caves or frescoes. They may with confidence be regarded as of the age of the cave. Not so with the images above them, among which are several of Buddha and two standing figures of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteswara, which all may belong to a later period. So also does the figure of Buddha in the front wall at the left end of the veranda, under which is an inscription containing the name of Buddhaghosha, in letters of about the sixth century. 
  The verandah has two pillars in front, and the screen above them is carried up with five openings above. In the left side of the court are two rooms, one entered through the other, but evidently of later date than the cave. The outer one has a good deal of sculpture in it. On each side of the court is an attached pillar; on the top of that on the west side are four lions, as at Karle; on the other are three fat squat figures similar to those on the pillar in the court of the Jaina Cave, known as Indra Sabha, at Ellora; these probably supported a wheel. In front of the verandah there has been a wooden porch.
caption: Great Chaitya cave (cave No.3).
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